Does divination prove that we don't have free will?

[𝕳𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊]

Is everything we do predestined?

 

[cmdrjamz]

Predestined? Not at all.

I actually ran an experiment once with a series of predictions about the same binary-outcome event, trying to gauge how strong a prediction was over time. The purpose was to both see if predictions changed, as well as see what the modulation was of strength of predictions as they got closer to the time of the event. Predictions changed over time. It was proof of concept, but valid all the same.

I've posted my theory in a bit more detail previously, but my theory is that we have free will and it doesn't matter 90% of the time. If you eat chicken or fish for dinner, it's not changing the outcome of your life 5 years from now. It's not predestination, it's that we rarely want to really rock the boat and do anything that will result in big changes over the long term.

Then 10% of the time we have significant free will and changes are well-known points of decisions that impact us. It's not your wedding day, it's the singular moment you decide to get over your nerves and talk to that pretty girl. It's not the day your kids are born, it's the day you made a decision to schedule a work trip two weeks earlier than usual, making your child a Pisces and not an Aquarius. It's not that you change how you drive home some days to avoid traffic, it's that one day your gut TOLD you to turn left and go the long way, and you didn't listen, and got in an accident that paralyzed you from the waist down.

Some people act in ways where they never get on a sort of autopilot track that will run a certain way no matter what, and their lives are always full of big ups and downs. Every day they do stuff that might change how their life goes, but that's because every day they have no attachment to the path to prevent them from dropping everything and going to Vegas for a month because their buddy was driving that way. It's a great way to live in your early life until you find a path that leads somewhere better than you are. It's why (IMO) a lot of people live crazy lives and suddenly, shockingly, settle down out of nowhere.

To @FireBorn 's question about being pre-programmed, sure, in a sense you're right. But that's something else taking advantage of your free will. You haven't lost it, you've lost agency over it. The effort put into manipulating people and their decisions shows that free will is a thing, and that it takes work to convince someone to use their free will how someone else wants.

Beautifully said! That makes sense. Life is often predictable because we live predictable lives. We perform specific actions to achieve specific predictable means so it might feel like we don’t have free will. However, if we activate during decision points like approaching a girl, or stopping at a red light, we can exercise our free will. I would argue that those ‘acts of free will’ don’t necessarily imply free will. To me, it would be more accurate to call that your sense of agency. You may feel a stronger sense of agency(SoA) during those moments that may still just be a product of the intricate wiring of fate. After all what if their was some cue for you to have those feelings. In my opinion, their is no homunculus.

Anyways it was still a good point.

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:55 AM

Everything that is now is the result of what came before. Why would this be any different if you shifted your focus one second into the future? A year? 50 years? The world is causal. Your thoughts and actions and determinations are instilled in you because of that which came before in your life. You may not be able to point the finger at the direct or indirect causation, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Right! It’s like you’re honing yourself against the stoniness of reality. What you were affects what you will become. I always thought the “I didn’t choose to be born” argument was great example of how we don’t have free will. You’re born and you have no choice. Before you know it your biology kicks in. Instinct, form, behaviors are all forced on you and have no choice in the matter. Does that make sense?

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:55 AM

Everything that is now is the result of what came before. Why would this be any different if you shifted your focus one second into the future? A year? 50 years? The world is causal. Your thoughts and actions and determinations are instilled in you because of that which came before in your life. You may not be able to point the finger at the direct or indirect causation, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Right! It’s like you’re honing yourself against the stoniness of reality. What you were affects what you will become. I always thought the “I didn’t choose to be born” argument was great example of how we don’t have free will. You’re born and you have no choice. Before you know it your biology kicks in. Instinct, form, behaviors are all forced on you and have no choice in the matter. Does that make sense?

 

[moonbow]

I don’t believe there could ever be such a thing as free will to begin with, if you look at it from the perspective that we all exist and there are parallel dimensions of us, and we have no idea how many there really are, then the version of you that exists could do anything any of them have ever done. That, and it’s physically impossible for you to do something that you just can’t do, then that’s really the parameters you work with. You have as much free will as your body would allow on this plane of existence.
Since that might seem a bit gibberish, let me give you an example; take for instance your hand, now, you can manipulate your fingers any which way you choose but you can not do so in a way that is impossible, and the extremes will leave you suffering the consequences, and if you have no hand at all then that’s the end of being able to conduct it how you choose. And I think that’s basically how it works

Yeah but that's only in this very limited dimension, right? And only as long as you are still unawakened? Just a little shift from this dimension to another one (lets call it the astral) would already allow to do almost infintely more things with your astral body and energy. And saints and immortals are said to be able to change their bodies and do "impossible" things even in this physical dimension because of their enlightenment and ability to manipulate energy. So are we just limited by our own ignorance? It would seem like the higher the enlightenment, the freer the will?